Season 2005-06 : Drew 0-0. Drew 1-1. Lost 1-0. Lost 4-2. Lost 3-1. Pretty terrible start, wasn't it? Two points from our opening five matches during the season that saw us enter League One - the last time that we got promoted up the football pyramid. Having just won the League Two title, we had high hopes of being able to cope with the new level, but within five matches we were suddenly fretting about being in the relegation zone.

As it happens, we were panicking unduly. Gradually, our team started to get the measure of how we needed to cope with third tier football, and from that rather sticky start, we ended up in 15th place in the final table, six points above the safety line, and a rather tidy looking 56 points.

But certainly those early games were difficult to cope with eight years ago. Our new level of football made us very swiftly realise that we were dealing with a very different standard of opposition. Our own players might have been performing to the same standard that they had been in League Two, but when faced with a League One defender, we couldn't score, and when trying to mark a League One striker, we kept losing our man. On occasions, it was fine lines that beat us - I recall the 3-1 defeat against Chesterfield as being particularly cruel, as we dominated the match yet they soaked up the pressure and systematically destroyed us on the break.

History lesson over, and onto the here and now. Despite winning against Millwall on the opening day of the season (we had to wait until Game No.6 in 2005-06 for that event!) the subsequent couple of fixtures have been rather more unproductive. At Burnley on Saturday, we matched our opponents, probably up until the final third when I felt that the Clarets looked a bit more comfortable than ourselves in terms of snuffing out our attacks.

But we were keeping in the game fairly well - with probably the dividing line being Burnley's introduction of Keith Treacy and Scott Arfield. Their substitutes both played big parts in the two goals they scored - Treacy got the first goal, whilst drawing the foul from which the second goal came. Then Arfield's shot had more to do with the second goal, than Sam Vokes' backside did, as it pinged off the striker's body. Their substitutes were highly effective in turning the match, whilst our introduction of Michael Ngoo and Sam Hoskins didn't really achieve a lot - in fact the moving of Liam Davis to left-back seemed to upset the balance of the side a bit - again the second goal came through a poor Davis foul, as the whole team performance began to unravel.

That, in a nutshell, was why Burnley won and Yeovil Town lost as I saw it. Their substitutes were effective, and ours were rather anonymous. In addition, I felt that once the first goal went in, the whole team flapped a bit, and not just Sam Johnstone's hands. Aside from that wind-assisted error, Johnstone had a fairly decent game, so hopefully that was a bit of a one-off for him. I was more concerned at how readily we caved in after that mistake, as a whole team. What had been a finely balanced 0-0 after 74 minutes could have easily turned into a bit of a hammering after 90 minutes. Gary Johnson will need to get his players to stand up to those sort of body blows a bit better, and ensure that even at 1-0 down that we stay in games better, so that we're still in with a chance of sneaking a 1-1 draw. At Turf Moor, once Treacy's cross into the box sneaked into the back of the net, from a Yeovil Town point of view it was pretty much "game over" in terms of what followed, which it shouldn't have been.

A lot has been made of our strikers, and the fact that we have only scored two goals in our opening four games. The big problem, as I see it, is not that our strikers are missing big hatfuls of chances - it's more that they're not getting those chances in the first place. Both Birmingham City and Burnley had very well organised defences, and Paddy Madden and James Hayter are both struggling to get room in the box. But to unlock that, then we also need the wingers and the creative midfielders to contribute more themselves - it's about having the cleverness and the movement to unlock defences and to upset their balance and shape that will create goals, and that needs all of the front six to help do that, and not just Madden and Hayter. Furthermore, I didn't see anything in Michael Ngoo or Sam Hoskins on Saturday to suggest that they were going to do anything better, although to Hoskins' credit, he is the player who has provided the assists for both of our goals so far this season.

In defence, I don't think we're looking too bad at all, particularly given that we have two new arrivals that need bedding in, with Alan Tate and Dan Seaborne being the two non-Wembley starters we've used a lot this season, plus the disruption of a goalkeeper injury. But if you take the goals that we have conceded, one (against Birmingham) was a ricocheted own goal, a second was a wind-assisted cross that was not intended as a genuine shot, and the third was another ricochet inside the box that took the ball into the net. So whilst you can argue that some of the play leading up to each goal could be improved upon, all three goals conceded have seen the rub of the green go a little against us. We have yet to be undone by a piece of magical play.

So all-in-all, I don't feel that things are too bad, based on what I've seen in the four games so far. There's room for improvement, mainly in how we create clear-cut chances in matches, to allow us to score more goals. But the key thing is that I've yet to see us be out-classed by any of our opponents. But last season's Championship League table, which saw just 14 points separate a side that got relegated, from a side that got into the play-offs, should tell us what to expect. This is a division made up of up to 24 evenly matched clubs. Seven matches on Saturday ended up as 1-0, 1-1 or 0-1 scorelines, showing that just one moment in a game can be enough to give you zero points or three points - just as the 74th minute at Turf Moor saw our hopes of a useful 0-0 draw taken away from us by a bit of a freakish goal.

Inevitably, being back on home turf for three matches in a row over the next three matches gives us both an opportunity to redress the balance of the last two defeats, as well as inevitably producing a little bit of pressure to make sure that does happen. Leaving aside the Birmingham cup game, we probably need to target around three or four points from the two Championship fixtures against Derby County and Reading to help settle nerves down and ensure no-one starts referring to a drama as a crisis. This early in, and based on the 2005-06 season experience, it would be foolish to do so.

Thanks for a refreshingly well-argued (and well-supported) analysis od the season so far. I think there are plenty of reasons to be unconcerned by our only slightly disappointing start, if not actually reasons to be cheerful.
19/08/2013 17:45:10

camberwick green said ...

Excellent summary, pretty much agree.
Another factor was the bottled sending off v Brum
19/08/2013 18:56:19

Dusty said ...

Excellent summary and well argued assessment of the season so far. We didn't expect it to be easy and players need time to adjust but Gary is right in his comments too - you have to take your chances when they come because there won't be many. I am sure the players are alive to Gary's and our expectations and I am sure they will come good on Saturday.
19/08/2013 20:35:24

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